Personal information – Alumni & Supporters

When you are a student of the University you automatically become a member of the University and normally become a member of the University alumni community. The University promises to provide alumni services to University alumni and this promise is part of the student contract. The University regards these services as an important and integral part of the University’s long term commitment to its students. The University also, through its development and marketing departments, processes personal data on a number of past, current and prospective donors, sponsors, collaborators, benefactors and friends of the University.

We obtain personal data regarding you from the following sources:

  • Data already held by the University via a transfer from the University’s student central and local databases to the alumni database upon graduation;
  • Data provided by you, for example, when you:
    • registered for AlumNet or University affiliated social media pages online;
    • provided information through our website, newsletter competitions, volunteering discussions or when making donations;
    • completed and returned surveys or response forms such as contact preference forms and Gift Aid forms (by mail, email or via a University website);
    • discussed it with University representatives;
    • registered to attend an alumni or University event event
    • Attended and event, via telephone calls, from returned post
    • Made a donation or entered into a contractual arrangement with the University
  • Data obtained from third party sources such as:
    • organisations that assist us with pursuing our purposes described below
    • public sources of information including media articles, company and charity filings, social media posts; and
    • information from other alumni who may be peers and/or friends, other family members

Categories of personal data being processed

The information that we collect and process includes personal data (i.e. information relating to you by which you can be directly or indirectly identified).

Some personal data that we collect or hold includes “sensitive personal data” as described under the DPA or “special categories of data” as described under the GDPR. Such “sensitive personal data” or “special categories of data” includes information about your racial or ethnic origin, religious or other beliefs, physical or mental health. This data would only be processed if:

  • you have directly provided it yourself with your consent to use it for the purpose/s specified;
  • in the course of legitimate activities such as for event management purposes (e.g. for assessing access requirements arising from a disability) or for selecting a particular group of alumni who may be interested in a specific alumni function (e.g. an alumni function that is held in the country that you are a national of);
  • it has been sourced from information that we believe you have clearly made public (e.g it appears in your public linked-in profile or in your public profile on other social media); and/or
  • it is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research or statistical purposes.

The data we may process includes:

  • your title, name (including former name or alias), gender, date of birth
  • photographic image
  • your education record
  • the University accommodation where you lived
  • the Union societies and clubs that you joined
  • your contact information (address, telephone, email, social media)
  • your business details including positions, organisation, professional memberships and qualifications Your salary?
  • your career highlights and other lifetime achievements
  • your outside interests and membership of groups
  • information about your wealth
  • information from articles in the media about you
  • your family details, including spouse or partner, and relationships with other alumni, supporters and potential supporters
  • events you have been invited to and whether or not you have responded or attended
  • your donations of time, expertise or money
  • a record of interactions with you for future reference and to help tailor further communications with you
  • generally information that you have decided to share with us
  • information on you as a scholar and information scholars are required to complete (e.g. progress reports)

The purposes for which we process your personal data

We will use your data to help us maintain an engaged alumni community and for development and marketing purposes. We may process your personal data for the following purposes:

Administration

  • to verify an account and provide a personalised experience for you when you register for the Alumni Online website
  • to process a gift you have given (and any Gift Aid claims)
  • event registration
  • to process and organise any volunteering activity you have agreed to undertake
  • to keep a record of communications between us

Fundraising and volunteering

Fundraising supports:

  • schemes to encourage people to enter higher education
  • scholarships for our students
  • University research
  • improvements to the University’s structure and facilities
  • student activities
  • arts and cultural activities

Volunteering supports:

  • student recruitment activity in the UK and overseas
  • mentoring
  • internships
  • careers support for students and graduates

Sharing memories

When meeting with alumni we sometimes share ‘pass lists’ which detail the first name, surname, degree and classification for other individuals who graduated from the same course in the same year. These lists are used to remind alumni about their student days; enabling them to reminisce.

The information can also help the University to make contact with alumni we may have lost touch with. Individuals with whom the lists are shared are asked if they are in touch with anyone on the list and, if appropriate, asked to approach these individuals to establish if they would like to receive communications from the University.

Reunions

On occasion members of the alumni community host reunions. To help the organiser establish who to invite the University provides some information.

The University provides organisers with details of alumni from a selected year group and course, as requested by the organiser. Details provided include first name and surname (as it appears on the University’s alumni database), degree, course and year of graduation. Details usually indicates who the University is in contact with and who is deceased.

Research

To ensure that we do not make inappropriate requests in our fundraising and volunteering communications, we may carry out research to assess your likely ability and willingness to make gifts to or volunteer for the University.

This research may include collecting and storing data relating to you that is in the public domain (such as career history, directorships, shareholdings and remuneration) as well as data that has been provided by you, including your interests, and University activity you have previously been involved with (donations, volunteering, event attendance etc.) This research is sometimes known as prospect research or wealth profiling.

Profiling and planning

We use your data (such as your postcode, nationality, subject of study, age, gender and level of engagement with the University) to help us plan our activities, and determine if we should contact you with certain communications, or information about particular activities. It helps us identify how our alumni are involved with the University, and which alumni activities are most popular. This research helps ensure our communications (including fundraising or volunteering requests) are relevant and of interest to you.

We do not conduct any wealth screening of individuals but do make use of data held in the public domain relating to the wealth of individuals to identify those who may be interested in supporting the University with a significant philanthropic gift.

Automated decision making

The Alumni and Development teams use various modelling tools that will automatically process your data to assess the likelihood of you being able to make a donation to the University or of becoming involved in alumni activities. However, we believe this does not produce a legal effect concerning you or similarly significant affect upon you in terms of article 22 para 1 of GDPR.

Anonymised data

Personal data may be anonymised so as to longer constitute personal data and such anonymised data may be used to support alumni and development activities.

Due Diligence

Please note that if you wish to make a gift to the University we may process your personal data, including information from the public domain, for due diligence purposes, in accordance with our Gift Acceptance and Naming Policy. View our Gift Acceptance and Naming Policy

Keeping your data up to date

We will update the data we hold on you from time to time. For example, if you provide us with new contact details. We will respond to your request for your data to be updated.

We may update your contact details by using third party sources/services such as Royal Mail NCOA (National Change of Address). We also use these services to check if there are people we should no longer contact (for example, if someone has died). Where third parties provide these services to us they are only allowed to use your data in accordance with the strict instructions of the University. The third party is required to hold the data confidentially and securely and will not use your data in any other way. Your data will only be kept for as long as necessary and will then be destroyed.

AlumNet and Social Media

If you have registered through AlumNet or with a university affiliated social network group, you can select what personal information will appear in your profile. See the user agreement/s of AlumNet and relevant social media sites for more information.

Fellow alumni

We also facilitate communications between individual alumni, but in doing so we do not release personal contact details without your prior permission.

Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)

All UK universities are obliged to give contact details for a sample of recent graduates to HESA in order to conduct a survey of graduate destinations.

Graduates will be contacted 15 months after graduation. For more information on HESA’s collection notices available to data subjects whose data is being returned to HESA please visit HESA’s collection notices.

These surveys help to inform government policy. They are also used in calculations for university league tables and by the universities themselves to assess the longer-term impact of the student experience. The data is provided to HESA strictly and solely for this purpose. All recent graduates to whom this applies will be given the opportunity to opt out of the survey when they are first contacted.

Graduate surveys by third parties

Sometimes the University is requested to share graduates’ contact information with third parties who are facilitating alumni surveys, which feed into university league tables and rankings. These include, but are not limited to: Financial Times, The Economist, QS and Times Higher Education/Wall Street Journal rankings.

When it is necessary to share your contact details with these third parties, you will be given prior notice by the University and the option to opt out of the survey when you are first contacted.

Debt Collection

If students have unpaid debts to the University at the end of their course, we may, at our discretion, pass this information to debt collecting agencies in order to pursue the debt.

Sharing data with countries outside of the EU

In the event that it is necessary to share your data with individuals or organisations outside of the European Union, we will ensure that there are appropriate safeguards in place as required by the GDPR.

Communications

We will from time to time communicate with you by email, post and telephone to pursue the purposes mentioned above. In particular we regularly communicate with people for the following purposes:

  • share news about the University (including its research and services) and our alumni (including promotion of discounts and services for alumni)
  • invite you to events and reunions
  • invite you to support our fundraising activity
  • invite you to volunteer for the University. This includes providing advice and guidance to students and University representatives and giving support to students during their time at University and in their career.

To manage your communication preferences or to withdraw or vary the consent/s that you have given to receive communications, please email alumni@buckingham.ac.uk.

Legal basis for processing your data

GDPR is a new law coming into effect on 25 May 2018 and it has not yet been applied to circumstances similar in context to our relationship with alumni. The extent of lawful grounds for processing data has yet to be fully understood and further guidance and/or codes of practice are anticipated from the ICO. As legal views mature and further guidance is given, the University may from time to time reassess its legal basis for processing.

The University will sometimes process your data based upon your consent. You have the right to withdraw or vary your consent at any time (see your rights as a data subject below)

The University has made a contractual commitment to students, as lifetime members of the University, to provide services and activities for alumni. Therefore the University will also be processing data often on the basis that it is necessary to enable it to meet its contractual commitments to alumni.

The University believes that by supporting University alumni and other development activities it is acting in the public interest. In particular it is supporting the University’s charitable object of education and the benefits to society that flow from that.

Sometimes the University will be processing your data because you have clearly made it publicly available.

Finally, the University believes that its activities are necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interest of the University and other third parties. These interests are not overridden by the interests and fundamental rights or the freedoms of the data subjects concerned and whether or not there is a legitimate interest in processing the data will be dependent on the circumstances of each situation. Legitimate interests of the University and third parties focus on supporting educational activities and ongoing developmental activities for University alumni and others.

It is recognised that some of the above grounds will overlap and that the University could rely on multiple grounds as the lawful bases for the processing of personal data.

Supporters/Friends/Donors

We look after personal data collected by the University during the course of our relationship with you if you give of your time, influence or money to philanthropically or otherwise support the University’s mission.

Potential Supporters/Friends/Donors

If you have been identified as a potential partner or supporter of the University, your personal information will have been brought to the University’s attention either directly by yourself, or as a referral from a third person or through research conducted by the Development and Alumni Relations Office to find people who may have an interest in the work of the University arising from either geographic proximity or potential mutual interests.

We will contact you, as a potential supporter, with a view to securing a meeting or networking opportunity in order to discuss areas of mutual interest, partnership or benefit. When we contact you we will make you aware of this privacy statement, how we obtained your personal information, and you will be at liberty to opt out of receiving further communications at any time.

Preferred Methods of Communication

Your communications preferences are important to us. You can choose whether you’d like to be kept in touch, by post, telephone, or email, by emailing us at alumni@buckingham.ac.uk. If you have not indicated a preference previously and you have registered your email address with us, the default method of communication will generally be email.

If you no longer wish to receive some or all of these communications you can unsubscribe.

Your contact details are used to provide you with information about:

  • University news
  • Events (including invitations to exclusive events)
  • Products – such as courses of study or University merchandise
  • Services – such as our Sports Facilities (accessible at a special rate to alumni), Careers support, and the University Library
  • Opportunities to support the University – including volunteering opportunities (such as becoming a mentor to a current student, hosting or helping us to run an event), fundraising for us (perhaps by taking part in a sponsored walk, run, or bake sale), and direct fundraising appeals to support the University (such as for our research or student scholarships).
  • Marketing – to include information on overseas recruitment trips and UK Fairs where alumni can get involved if they wish.

Please tell us promptly about any changes to the information we hold about you. This is particularly important for your contact details. You can do this by emailing alumni@buckingham.ac.uk.